Nature of a Demon
by Lord Mendasuit
Summary: If wisdom comes with age, then why would anyone think that a creature as old as the Kyuubi is was dumb, beastly and single minded? Why would anyone deem it a raging berserker? Were he honest, Kurama would admit to some degree of pleasure in disabusing his container of such a notion.


Naruto was abso-fucking-lutely livid. So pissed was he, in fact, that he wasn't even the slightest bit afraid of the colossal monstrosity that had laid waste to his home village a decade and a half ago. Usually, he just covered up the fear with bravery, but today, he didn't even feel it, not with how pissed he was at the thing.

"You're annoying me. Go away." The Kyuubi spoke, it's voice rumbling and thundering and booming and immense and failing to have any effect whatsoever on the fifteen years old genin in front of it.

"No. I'm not getting away until you calm the fuck down and stop hurting my friends every time I use your chakra. This time you went too far. I won't allow you to hurt my friends ever again!" The blond was very much convicted to his cause, feeling himself completely justified in his pursuit of justice, trying to obtain what little of it he could with the situation as it was. "If you don't cooperate with me, those Akatsuki guys are gonna beat me, and then it's game over for both of us!"

"I already give you my chakra when you ask for it, insufferable brat. Go away, I am trying to sleep here." The Kyuubi grumbled, seeming not unlike an extremely old man being annoyed by a child too idiotic to realize that playtime was over.

"And every time I try to use it, you try to overpower me and break loose. If I stop fighting with any form of skill, I'll just get my ass kicked!" Naruto yelled, throwing his hands up. "Stop trying to get us both killed, you dumbass!"

Naruto was shocked, almost enough to snap him out of his anger induced bravado, when the creature started to _laugh at him_.

"Hey! What are you laughing at!? This is serious!"

The Kyuubi finally let out a few loud rumbling chuckles out that signified the end of its barking laugh. "If you wish to know what's so hilarious to me, insufferable meatbag, is that you think that I'm even trying to take you over at all." It said, crossing its paws and laying its head down, coming to eye level with Naruto, or as close to it as it could go anyway.

"If you didn't try to do that, I wouldn't go berserk every time I use your power, you fuzzbag!" The blond shinobi said, confused at what the fox could possibly mean.

"Oh yeah?" The fox asked, offering him a slight grin, though it wished it could use some chakra to add pressure to its stare. Alas, it was held back by the giant bars. "And do tell, am I acting like a berserk, raging monstrosity at the moment? Am I trashing endlessly against my bonds, seeking release? Do I reek with bloodlust?"

Naruto didn't look impressed. "Yeah, you speak a big deal but the moment you've got an inkling of freedom you go berserk."

"Hardly." The Kyuubi spoke. "I am older than the very shinobi art that is used to seal me and my brethren in you humans. Much older than that, in fact, since I was the first to be sealed, and that wasn't even a hundred years ago." It continued, sounding slightly bored. "Were I this raging berserker you think me as, don't you think I would have scorched this world long ago? It is not for lack of an ability to do so, I could do so at any time I wished, even if my brethren banded together to try and stop me. I am the strongest creature in this world, don't forget that."

"Big lot of good all that power does you from here, eh?" Naruto taunted.

"Consider your words very carefully. Our deaths would only be a temporary inconvenience to me, I assure you." The Kyuubi spoke, eyes narrowed. "I take no joy in random violence, nor do I find pleasure in senseless destruction. The one joy in my life is the relaxation of sleep, which you are taking away from me at this very moment."

"Then why do you go berserk every time I use your chakra!?" Naruto asked, a challenge to come up with a reason that kept with the trend in his voice.

"Me? Going berserk? None of my consciousness accompanies the chakra I give you." The Kyuubi said, letting out a few barks of laughter as it did. "Indeed, if I had to say, it's not so much me influencing you into a mad rage, but your true colors shining through at last."

"I'm not a mindless, raging beast!" Naruto yelled, anger clouding his judgment.

"Perhaps you are not." The Kyuubi conceded. "Due to a lack of power. Deep within you there is fear. There is much fear of the consequences of your actions. You are called reckless by your peers, when I have seen the depths of your soul and I have seen the fear that you try to conceal there. I have seen that you fear what the retribution would be, should you truly act on your true desires and get payback for all of the pain inflicted on you. I have seen that you fear me, no matter how much you may try to hide it. Perhaps it hasn't sunk in yet, boy, but this is your mindscape, the representation of your very soul. Why do you think your mind is as fortified as this dungeon happens to be? You're trying your hardest to hide the truth at the deepest reaches... But you can't hide them any longer."

Naruto took a step back, his anger leaving him. He should have known, should have _noticed_, that he was not arguing with some common idiot, nor was he arguing with one of his peers, who were his age and shared his level of experience in life. He was arguing with an ungodly old creature, whose wit and intelligence he couldn't even scrape the surface of. He was well out of his depth, and it showed because with every second, he could feel himself failing to deny the fox its words.

He found himself acknowledging that the words the evil monster spoke were nothing less than the truth, naked and searing.

"You were amusing, for a time. Your struggles to reconcile your superego with your id were interesting to watch. But perhaps the time to allow you to roam ignorant has come and gone. Perhaps there is greater amusement to be had in watching you struggle to come face to face with your true self. That is who you are, Uzumaki Naruto... A coward, afraid of rejection, afraid of solitude and afraid of the thin ice he stands on."

"You're wrong! You're lying! I'm no coward!" Naruto yelled, anger injecting much needed courage into him. "I won't let you lie to me this way! I won't listen to you!" He continued, taking a few steps forward so he was close enough that the fox could make out his angry scowl.

"It is of no concern to me what you say, because you know that I speak the truth." The fox said, clearly thoroughly amused. "Because you know now, better than anyone, the reason why you go berserk when you use my power. No matter how much you try to blame it on me... You know that it's all you. You know that it's the taste of real power, that rush of adrenaline brought to you by my peerless strength flowing through your veins, that allows you to show your true colors and lash out against the world."

By the time Naruto left his mindscape, all he could hear was the echoing, dark sound of the Kyuubi's mad laughter, yet he could not feel anything other than the impossibly cold chill that had taken over his body. He could feel nothing but the pain that came with realization.

Maybe, after all, those who believed in him...

... Had been wrong all this time...


End file.
